D’var Torah

This week’s Parashat is Nitzavim (“Standing”), Deuteronomy 29:9-30:20 Moses addresses the Israelites, emphasizing the importance of following G-d’s covenant and of not worshiping other gods. Moses describes the process of repentance and returning to G-d, and stresses that G-d’s commandments are achievable and “not in the heavens.”

This is very appropriate with the approaching of the High Holy Days. An important reminder of the Covenant with the Divine, and the process of true repentance and learning to change. Change is hard, but more so is taking the step to admitting you were wrong and being held accountable for what you need to do. That means to be better, improve yourself and your relationships with others.

As Rabbi Jacqueline Mates-Muchin mentions in her commentary “Torah explains that we decide how we will live. We have a choice…. The better we are at self-control, the less likely we are to be at the whim of our gut reactions. Thus, we can be more intentional about every action we take, especially when we interact with other people. Our interactions are based on our choices, rather than how we might instinctually behave. It is up to us to choose to live purposefully and righteously.”

Being decent human beings means knowing that we have responsibilities and that it is within our means to fulfill those obligations. We need to consciously choose how we want to conduct ourselves and our lives.

We need to choose to be thoughtful, purposeful, and intentional.

As we prepare to bring in the New Year, may these aspects of who we are and our traditions give us the strength and direction to move into a better future.

Shabbat Shalom and L’Shana Tova!

Guest Commentator: Larry Fox

The Torah reading this week, Ki Tavo/“When you enter,” continues to lay out laws to be fulfilled when the Israelites enter the land toward which they have headed for forty years. It is hard to imagine a journey of this length, with its births and deaths, the multiple milestones in every life. And maybe just as hard to imagine living in an extended familial community that, despite disagreements, functions and moves from place to place together.

When they enter the land, they are to perform a ritual, using the dramatic backdrop of the two mountains surrounding the valley where they assemble, and enumerating the curses and blessings that are promised depending on the fulfillment of the mitzvot or the failure to fulfill them. There are several sections of laws, curses and blessings, some that apply to individuals based on particular actions, and others that are clearly addressed to the community and are based on an overall communal adherence (or lack thereof) to the full covenant of laws. To experience the powerful, public cataloging of these curses and blessings must have shaken the community of Israelites, as it was meant to do. For many readers, the text leaves us wondering about the power of threats and promises, and what are the most effective ways for authority to inspire respect.

With the New Year almost here, we will soon connect with similarly dramatic questions and metaphors in our High Holy Day liturgy. In this context, we will celebrate and also reflect on mistakes and challenges. We will wonder about big questions of life and death, and we will try to find the most effective ways to hold ourselves accountable. I look forward to celebrating and engaging these very real questions in community with all of you. 

Have you ever worked to gain an opportunity and found that it was very different than you expected? Or been appointed to a position without expecting or planning for it? Jewish sacred teachings, particularly the Torah, are meant to prepare us for all kinds of circumstances, so that when we find ourselves in new situations, we have thought about at least some of the questions and challenges that will confront us. This is especially true of circumstances when we find ourselves with practical and ethical choices that will impact other people.

Numerous areas of life are addressed in this parasha. When we find something that someone else has lost or left behind, we may be inclined to leave it be, or feel it’s not our problem. This week’s reading emphasizes that we are to go out of our way to return a lost item to its owner. We are also instructed to take responsibility for safe conditions when building a house, keep our promises, and refrain from cheating our customers in business. All of these instructions demand that we act with thought and compassion even when we may feel like acting on greed or convenience instead. Reading, discussing and thinking these things through gives us a leg up when we find ourselves in a situation that requires a considered response.

Some commandments in this week’s reading are confusing or even offensive to a modern sensibility, such as the prohibition against wearing clothing presumed to be for a different gender, and the inhumane and antiquated treatment of a disobedient son (which the Rabbis later legislated out of application). While the mitzvot in this parasha range from deeply humane and timeless to more questionable, studying the text and its commentaries can prepare us for circumstances we might not otherwise think through – part of the beauty of a Jewish-style text study is the conversation that it sparks and the ways that these conversations and the insights from them can stay with us and inform our choices when we might least expect it. So, next time you see your neighbor’s ox wandering in your local park, you know you can’t just turn your head and pretend you didn’t notice.

Shabbat shalom,

Rabbi Julie

The right to a fair trial is vital to a justice system. Impartiality of judges is part of the foundation for such trials. Our Torah reading this week, Shoftim (Judges), instructs judges against accepting bribes or rendering a decision they know is unfair. Some of the instructions seem clearly aimed at those who serve as official judges, and others can be understood to be part a moral code for all of us. The text includes the fundamental and all-encompassing directive, Tzedek, tzedek tirdof – Justice, justice you shall pursue – which animates much of what many Reform Jews as well as others find most compelling in our Judaism.

The repetition of the word for justice has been interpreted to convey emphasis, resulting in the translation “you shall surely pursue justice.” Medieval commentator Rashi takes the repetition to mean that just ends must be achieved by just means, while his contemporary in Spain, Ibn Ezra, writes that Moses repeats tzedek to indicate that one should pursue justice whether it leads to one’s gain or loss.

We are now witnessing and experiencing the dismantling of our country’s justice systems, from deporting immigrants without due process to misusing the power of the legal system to investigate political opponents as a means of retribution. The unabashed and purposeful attacks on our educational, economic, political and health institutions flaunt the Torah’s teachings against partiality, bribes and the taking advantage of people’s vulnerabilities.

In this context, how shall we read the repetition of the word tzedek? Today, I offer us this reading: Our tradition teaches us to persist in pursuing justice – to stand, sit, speak, write, love, sing, dance, defend and fight for justice/tzedek for ourselves and others, to share our actions so others will be strengthened and share theirs with us, and to know that our tradition and our ancestors stand behind and beside us.

Wishing everyone a restorative Shabbat,

Rabbi Julie

The Jewish path is not just a collection of laws or a schedule of holidays, but a way, a trail or course. And the course has purpose – it is meant to guide us to fulfill the values of our covenant.

There is a lovely linguistic construction in Hebrew that conveys directionality.  When we are heading somewhere, we can add the letter hey to the end of our destination, conveying the sense of motion. This gives us words such as habayitah – homeward; ha’irah – toward the city; and yamah – toward the sea. These words can help us feel simultaneously the importance of both the journey and the places or goals we are aiming to achieve.

In this week’s parasha, Re’eh, we continue to look toward the life we are to build together as a people. While some details are spelled out (You shall not gash yourselves in mourning), other instructions are broad and require interpretation in each new context (Open your hand to the poor and needy kin in your land). In the instructions for bringing offerings to the Temple, the place is not simply sham – there, but shamah – to there. While we are headed there, we are to travel with the goal in mind. This seems obvious, but when the way is long, such as a lifetime, it requires decision and practice to maintain our sense of direction, of heading toward our goals.

Whether we are thinking of personal spiritual goals (serenity, mastery of our actions, honesty, gratitude) or large-scale societal goals (creating a sustainable relationship with the earth, ending poverty, protecting our communities and the next generation), Jewish practices point the way. The path of mitzvot or regular Jewish practice both blesses and pushes us to step on the path and stay the course. As we near the month of Elul, which begins this Sunday and precedes the New Year, I look forward to building our communal pathway together!

Rabbi Julie

When we refer “the Shema,” we may think just of the two lines, Shema Yisrael… and Baruch Shem K’vod…But “the Shema” also refers to the paragraphs from the Torah that follow it, starting with the v’ahavta. And what makes up the Shema brings up what a friend of mine loves to call a “Big Jewish Question.”

Here is the issue: in classical Jewish tradition, there is a paragraph after the v’ahavta that is included in traditional prayerbooks but was removed from Reform siddurim (prayerbooks). Why? Let’s take a look – Here it is, (straight from this week’s Torah reading in Deuteronomy):

If, then, you obey the commandments that I enjoin upon you this day, loving your God יהוה and serving [God] with all your heart and soul, I will grant the rain for your land in season, the early rain and the late. You shall gather in your new grain and wine and oil— I will also provide grass in the fields for your cattle—and thus you shall eat your fill. Take care not to be lured away to serve other gods and bow to them. For יהוה’s anger will flare up against you, shutting up the skies so that there will be no rain and the ground will not yield its produce…(Deuteronomy 11:13-21).

So many of us don’t believe that God operates in this way, directly rewarding and punishing us based on our actions – we can see why our Reform prayerbook editors removed this message from our recitation of the Shema. But there has been a series of changes in the various Reform prayerbooks, and our current machzor (High Holy Day prayerbook) includes all three paragraphs of the classical Shema as an alternative reading in the Rosh Hashanah volume.

Why would we put this idea back into our liturgy? Sometimes, as much as Reform Jews say we don’t interpret the Torah literally…we do, and then we reject it because it doesn’t work for us. Maybe we removed that paragraph because we were taking the idea of divine reward and punishment literally. Now, especially in light of the ways human activity is warming the climate system, some may find it appropriate to acknowledge some truth in the teaching that our disrespect for the Creator of the natural world can result in “no rain [or far too much for us to handle] and the ground not yielding its produce.” Here is one of many places where religion and science connect, and also where they lead us to more Big Jewish Questions…

Can reading a threatening text frighten us into action? How do our thoughts and beliefs relate to our feelings about Jewish prayers and texts?

I’d love to hear your thoughts! See you Friday for potluck dinner and celebrating Shabbat together.

Rabbi Julie

I know we’re just starting to approach the season dedicated to teshuvah, but I have a confession to make. Here I am, your new rabbi, writing about the Torah portion in which we read the 10 commandments, and I have to admit that I’ve often had trouble with the whole idea of commandments, let alone 10 or 613.

I’m not saying I don’t try to follow them. – my issue is not with the content of the commandments. But our tradition teaches that God created us and called us “very good”. So why is our religious life built on commandments to ensure that we behave well? Does it not rob us of our self-confidence if we are always being told to “Be good!” when we already ARE good? Sometimes I read the ten commandments, and I feel a bit like a young child who is told to be nice before I have had a chance to show just how nice I really am. Of course, I know although we are good, we are also complicated, and we stray from our best behavior even when we know better, and the wisdom of the ten commandments is clear and deep. But I also believe that the core of Jewish practice is a path for the development of our inherent goodness, in the hopes that acting ethically will come naturally.

The ancient Rabbis taught that “with ten utterances was the world created.” (Avot 5:1) If we follow this idea for a moment, then we can make the connection: the One God who later gave us ten commandments first created the world through ten acts of speech. In other words, the ten commandments grow directly from the creation of the world, from the root of who we are, and maybe we are to hear the commanding Voice not only from the outside but also from inside ourselves.

Let’s look at one commandment to see how this might apply: the commandment to keep Shabbat. In the words of Isaiah:

If you refrain from trampling the Sabbath, from pursuing your affairs on My holy day;

If you call the Sabbath ‘delight’, God’s holy day ‘honored’;

And you honor it, without doing what you always do;

Not pursuing your business, nor even speaking of it;

Then you shall delight yourself in the Holy One.

(Isaiah 58:13-14)

Here Isaiah teaches us that if we observe the mitzvah of Shabbat, through it we will come to know God. This is a pretty big promise. Rabbi Rachel Mikva asks, “How do we make the Sabbath holy?” “To sanctify Shabbat must be more than guarding against technical violations of the Sabbath, and more than thoughtlessly performing a few rituals. To sanctify the Sabbath, we must make it the essence of our being, the soul of our time. We seek in each moment to draw closer to God, and discover the powerful spirit of the day. Then we will know the true celebration of holiness. There is no greater thrill” (Rachel S. Mikva, Broken Tablets: Restoring the Ten Commandments and Ourselves, p44).

How can we make something the essence of our being, unless it IS already the essence of our being? Maybe Rabbi Mikva is teaching that we must spend Shabbat discovering the essence of our being, in order for that essence to be manifest in our lives and in the world. So, in observing the commandment to keep Shabbat, we come to know and to become more like the essence of who we already are.

This Shabbat may we each come to know more of the essence of who we are.

This week’s parashah is Devarim, the reading that always precedes Tisha B’Av.The 9th day of the Hebrew month of Av, which falls on this Saturday evening and Sunday, marks the destruction of both the first and second ancient Temples and is traditionally observed by fasting and reading from the Book of Lamentations

I did not grow up observing Tisha B’Av. Many Reform Jewish communities have passed over this observance, not relating to the desire to rebuild the Temple nor to return to the Biblical worship practiced there. But while we may not mourn the ancient Temple itself, its destruction was accompanied by tremendous displacement and loss of life among the Jewish people. In addition, for some, Tishah B’Av has become a time to remember other times of Jewish suffering and loss, from the Crusades to the Holocaust.

This year, we too live in a time of immense and intense suffering. Israelis, Palestinians, and all who care will long continue to mourn the lives so brutally taken on October 7, 2023 and in the devastating war that has followed it. And the words from Lamentations, describing Jerusalem after its destruction, are painfully resonant with the current news from Gaza:

“All her inhabitants sigh as they search for bread;

They have bartered their treasures for food,

To keep themselves alive.—

See, O Lord, and behold,

How abject I have become!

(Lamentations 1:11)

With our country and our Jewish communities both threatened by division and blame, our Judaism calls us not to allow that threat to be carried out, nor for it to prevent us from acting to save lives and show compassion for each other and for all peoples. At this moment, the complexity of this war and the long histories that have led to it must not be used to justify starvation and denial of access to medicine to the people of Gaza.

This Shabbat, the words of the prophet Isaiah are read as the haftarah: “Learn to do good, seek justice, aid the robbed, do right for the orphan, fight for the widow.”

What can we do from here to help? The New Israel Fund, a trusted funder of democratic institutions in Israel, is raising funds to provide humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza, following the lead of Israeli NGOs who are demanding safe passage of food, water, and medical supplies into Gaza. I encourage us all to give and to share this opportunity with others. You can give and learn more at this link:

NIF Humanitarian Aid to Gaza

May the coming holy day of mourning and contemplation help us to find healing and to share it. Shabbat shalom,

Rabbi Julie